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Some recent articles by propents of rival nicking systems have floated the idea that somehow programs that don't use a database of worldwide stakes winners, and don't consider true opportunity - in fact they admit they don't use opportunity at all - can be more accurate than the TrueNicks program that considers true opportunity, and utilizes the comprehensive database of The Jockey Club Information Services.

Two particularly shining examples of the fallacy of such logic appeared recently via a pair of Danzig-line grade I winners. The first of these is the Diana Stakes (gr. I) winner Forever Together, a daughter of the veteran Lane's End Danzig son Belong to Me (TrueNicks, SRO). Out of the Relaunch mare Constant Companion, she follows the brilliant Jersey Girl, and graded stakes winner Ebony Breeze, as the third graded stakes winner sired by Belong to Me out of a mare by a son of In Reality. Oddly enough, the most prominent rival to TrueNicks rates this an F nick, where it appears as an A nick (on the Belong to Me/In Reality cross - note the primacy of the sire himself being used here) for TrueNicks.

The second example is South African star Buy and Sell, winner last weekend of the Champions Cup (SAf-I). He is by the excellent South African stallion National Emblem (by the imported Danzig horse National Assembly). With the aid of the comprehensive Jockey Club database, which includes all foals, starters, and stakes winners for South Africa, TrueNicks computes a rating based on the sire, National Emblem, that produces an A. For the opposition, who go back two more generations in the sire line, the mating is an F.

Filed under: Recent Winners, Validity